At least eight roofs were blown off and a communications cell tower collapsed in Sangre Grande yesterday as heavy rainfall, lightning and strong winds affected parts of the community.
The collapse of the tower along Graham and Katwaroo Trace, off Ojoe Road, also brought down several overhead electricity lines, leaving the entire Ojoe Road area without power for some time.
Local Government Minister Khadijah Ameen said eight roofs were blown off during the severe weather.
One of the affected homes was that of Simeon Joel Spence along Azalea Circular.
Spence said the rain became heavy shortly after 8 a.m., accompanied by a sudden burst of wind.
He said he was in a room when he realised rain was entering through a damaged window.
Spence said efforts were made to secure the curtains to reduce the amount of water entering the room.
While holding the curtain, he said the room suddenly became brighter and he looked up to find that part of the roof was missing.
He said the family initially did not know where the roof had gone.
Spence later discovered that about half of the roof had landed in the yard of a neighbour about three houses away.
The debris damaged a vehicle, breaking the glass on the front passenger side.
The mangled remains of the roof were left in the neighbouring yard.
The weather also caused disruption to electricity supplies along Ojoe Road.
The Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) said a fault occurred on the Ojoe Road 12kV feeder from the Sangre Grande Substation at about 8.21 a.m.
The utility said heavy wind gusts and torrential rainfall were affecting the area at the time.
Checks later found that a communications cell tower had collapsed near Graham and Katwaroo Trace, bringing down several overhead electrical lines.
A nearby resident reported hearing what sounded like an explosion, followed by a crashing sound.
Elsewhere along Ojoe Road, a large tree was uprooted and fell onto power lines.
The outage affected the vicinity of the Multipurpose Sporting Facility.
T&TEC said electricity had been restored as far as Adventist Street and Katwaroo Trace, while additional resources were deployed to restore service to the remaining affected areas.
Full restoration was estimated for 6 p.m. yesterday.
The utility apologised to customers affected by the outage and said efforts were continuing to restore electricity.
The weather was associated with scattered thunderstorms linked to the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, which brought gusty winds to parts of Trinidad.
The heaviest rainfall was recorded in eastern and southern Trinidad, with between 20 and 50 millimetres reported.
Additional rainfall and thunderstorms were forecast during the evening, particularly over southern and eastern areas, with gusty winds, frequent lightning and localised street flooding among the expected hazards.
